Hempstead approves environmental review for the Hub

After a year-long review, the Town of Hempstead on Tuesday approved the environmental scoping for redeveloping 150 acres around the Nassau Coliseum.

A few hours later, developers of the $2 billion mixed-use project, Lighthouse Development Group, delivered their draft environmental impact statement to the town’s planning board.

Charles Wang, a partner in the Lighthouse project, thanked board members for their support of the proposal for a new Coliseum and sports/entertainment complex for the Uniondale property that will combine a hotel, indoor and outdoor ice rinks, shopping, offices, and eventually, about 2,000 residences.

“We have to get off our butts and get something done,” Wang told the board, to the rousing applause of the audience at Town Hall. Most of those attendees were Islanders fans.

The DEIS includes examinations of water resources, air quality, traffic, energy usage and other environmental impacts that are expected with the much-ballyhooed redevelopment.

Hempstead held public hearings on possible environmental impacts last May as part of the project’s scoping process. The town will now review the Lighthouse’s draft statement before asking for a final version, which will be one of the last hurdles developers face before applying for site plan approval.

Wang said the Lighthouse project will generate 20,000 jobs, about $70 million in annual tax revenue and will be “an economic engine” for Long Island.

Wang alsosaid construction of the Lighthouse plan would have to be built in phases, with a new hockey arena and sports center first, followed by a hotel and then housing.

Wang’s partner Scott Rechler told the board that a “business as usual approach” won’t work in getting the Lighthouse project off the ground.

2 comments

Kate Murray and the Hempstead Town Board have been a disaster on moving the Lighthouse Project approval process forward. These people should all be turned out of office in the next election. Kate Murray has demonstrated a total lack of leadership.

This project should have been approved long ago as originally proposed. Ground should have been broken long ago and the first phase should be well along by now.

Clear blame to Kate Murray and the Hempstead Town Board. Hempstead, Nassau and LI residents will lose because of Katie and her cohorts.

If Kate Murray doesnt realize how much the Islanders mean to Long Island, vote her out of office and replace her with someone who does. The same goes for the rest of the lazy good for nothings at the Hempstead Town Board.

If you build it, they will come.

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David Winzelberg covers real estate, franchising, and white-collar crime for Long Island Business News.